NETX18 | Pamela Pavliscak - A future with feeling

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September 26, 2018

Our smartphones don’t know if we are having a good day or a bad day. Our cars could care less about compassion. Our home assistants are barely aware if we are shouting in frustration or just joking around. Technology is developing more IQ, but it lacks EQ.

At the same time, technology’s hidden operating system seems to move between emotional extremes, from moral outrage to ironic distance. Empathy is on the wane, and technology might be partly to blame. We are feeling new feels that we can’t only express through artful combinations of gifs and emojis. The emotional struggle is real and yet designers and developers try to dial back technology to neutral. It’s time to take as much care with the emotional layer of technology, as we do with the functional layer. Here’s why.

Technology is radically insufficient for the emotional spectrum of our lives. As much as technology designs our way of being in the world, it’s redesigning our inner lives. And the best experiences make us feel a little bit of everything. As technology becomes deeply integrated into every aspect of our daily lives, people will expect more emotionally intelligent interactions. In this talk, Pamela will look how a future with feeling translates to a future we might want.